A place where beginners can participate, ask questions, and post their views. However, beginners typically ask a lot of questions about sources, tricks, books, and so on. In fact, all magicians are interested (or should be) in the provenance of tricks, ideas, and related matters. This department will service these needs.

Hello everyone, My name is Tom and I'm from Portland, Oregon. My children are grown and on there own. Now it's time for me to get back into the things I loved growing up, but were put on hold. I still have that passion for magic and want to pursue getting back into it. What I'm interested in is mostly card magic. What I would like to do is to be able to pick up a deck of cards and perform 3-6 tricks. A bridge size deck seems to work better for my hands. I already own Royal Road to Card Magic and a few other items. I understand that there is no way that I can learn everything, but I do enjoy the instructional DVDs more than the books. What I'm not interested in is gimmicked card tricks. I would like, if at all possible, to be able to use the same deck to do all of the tricks, and leave everything examinable,if possible. And down the road I can incorporate other areas of magic with the card routines. So I'm here to ask for your help in maybe weeding out the DVD choices. I have read through a few forums, and thoroughly checked a number of items out. WOW, there's alot of magic out there. As you know this can be very confusing and overwhelming. It seems that I spend more time researching, when it can be better spent practicing. In the future I would like to attend a beginners card clinic(If there is one). I have also thought about finding a good instructor. Any ideas and advice would be surely appreciated. Thanks, Tom

Michael already made a great suggestion with Card College. This is in my opinion the best way to learn sleight-of-hand magic with cards. It has everything, moves from the simple to the difficult, wonderful effects that go along with the moves. A lot of tips and theory (particularly in volume 2) which you will find out is even more important than moves. Great illustrations and clear explanations. Roberto Giobbi is continuing to extend the series, vol. 5 will soon be available.

Since you have books and enjoy DVDs, you might want to consider looking into ebooks as well. I would particularly suggest Card College 1 - the ebook which has 89 video clips embedded, describing every technique not just in clear text, descriptive illustrations, but also video clips. Check it out, there is a sample page and a sample video clip available on my site.

Originally posted by Chris Wasshuber: Tom,Hi Chris, I was reading your post and you mentioned that the best place to learn is thru e-books.... can you tell me about others, other than the one you mentioned here...Thank youBarry RosenbergMichael already made a great suggestion with Card College. This is in my opinion the best way to learn sleight-of-hand magic with cards. It has everything, moves from the simple to the difficult, wonderful effects that go along with the moves. A lot of tips and theory (particularly in volume 2) which you will find out is even more important than moves. Great illustrations and clear explanations. Roberto Giobbi is continuing to extend the series, vol. 5 will soon be available.

Since you have books and enjoy DVDs, you might want to consider looking into ebooks as well. I would particularly suggest Card College 1 - the ebook which has 89 video clips embedded, describing every technique not just in clear text, descriptive illustrations, but also video clips. Check it out, there is a sample page and a sample video clip available on my site.

Take your copy of "Royal Road..." and turn to chapter XIX, Routines. There is some nice ideas therein, which should help you develop your three to six trick set.

This would also be a nice routine using the effects in RRTCM:

Open with "Double Reverse."

Follow that up with "A Tipsy Trick."

Then "A Meeting of the Minds." Stop there. When the audience demands an encore, do "A Poker Puzzle."

Those four tricks are all very magical, don't require a huge degree of skill (but don't scrimp on the preparation and practice necessary to make it entertaining. Updating and personalizing the patter wouldn't hurt as well).

And if your chops are up to it, you can't go wrong with the Ambitious Card routine in the middle.

There are dozens of tricks and routines within RRTCM which suit your situation as a beginner and could do double duty in a Pro's repertoire (which, in fact, they do).

Originally posted by MrMagicBR:Hi Chris, I was reading your post and you mentioned that the best place to learn is thru e-books.... can you tell me about others, other than the one you mentioned here...Thank youBarry Rosenberg

Barry, I can offer you many ebooks on magic, the question is what are you looking for? Cards? Coins? Mentalism? ... Are you a beginner, intermediate or advanced magician?

My selection has grown to almost 150 ebooks. Instead of giving you a long list you could define your interest and then I can make some specific suggestions which will fit your needs.

Tom, I second the suggestion that Card College contains excellent tricks and will put you on the road to becoming a good card magician.

I also named the Michael Ammar "Easy To Master Card Tricks" series from L&L (now also out on DVD) as some of the best magic videos ever. I don't agree with the "Easy to Master" name, but I do think they contain great magic. (The tricks, by the way, were not originated by Ammar, but he does an excellent job teaching them.)

The problem with videos like this is that do not provide you with the grounding in technique which Card College will give you, but they are still excellent videos.

(Jamy Ian Swiss vehemently disagrees with me about this, by the way. This has been an ongoing subject of rancorous discussions between us. Rancorous in a friendly way, of course.)